The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-10-26
Labor Notes

Philadelphia Record.
One thousand coke ovens are being built in
Birmingham, Ala
A steel rail will break with one-fourth the
force when the temperature is at zero that it
will at 100 above.
Good authority says that the boat building
capacity of the yards along the lakes will be
doubled within twelve or eighteen months.
Western machine shops never so full
of orders at this time. Everything in the
way Of building material has heen ordered away
ahead.
A recently returned traveller from the West
says some shopkeepers anxious to pay cash
for discounts. There seems to be no scarcity of
money among small traders.
Iron is being much more largely used for
roofing and tile purposes than ever. A Cincin-
natl firm is running night and day tiles
shingles, iron frames for roofs and iron-ore
paints and cements-
Many manufacturing establishments through
out the New England and Middle States are
roofs and other new compositions. The cost In
insurance is az Important item.
Kentucky mining and manufacturing interests
are being stimulated by the influx of great deal
is now being given to the development of lum Der
and mineral resources
The tendency in workshops is to make
more complicated and delicate machinery. To-
ventors are apparently reaching the limit of i'm
provements, and are preparing the way for some
radical Improvement or departure from existing
methods.
A great many Americans are constantly going
TO Europe to seek work. All of the German
roliingmi owners have formed a combination
and have divided the work up by percentages.
commission is now arranging uniform scale
of prices.
Some railway companies have under contem-
platoon the building of club houses for their en-
ployes. to be similar to the one ordered built by
Cornelius Vanderbilt The building recently
completed in New York is finely finished as
the best-appointed clubhouse.
So great is the demand for anthracite coal
that lumb cars are being fenced up with
boards and used. Much saty coal is going to
market. and more or less of it is subject to dock
or return. In the urgent requirements con-
siderable refuse coal is finding its way into
market.
Topeka Kan, will expend s25oOoO on the
sewer system. A ST. Louis fire brick concern
has just been awarded contract for Jos. 900
feet of sew grippe for the former city. 1t will
lay twenty miles The same company has an
order for 400, GOO bricks for q blast furnace at
Sheffield, Ala.
The new Cairo bridge across the Ohio river is
to have two spans 518 feet each, seven 400 feet
each, and three 25O feet each; total length, $40
feet 1t will be ffty-three feet above high
water mark, and will cost So, 600 1t will
take two and half years to build it It will be
the wonder of the West
St. Louis ia keeping pace with Chicago in its
industrial expansion Some of the street-rail-
ways are chaneing from horses to cables. New
manufacturing corporations are springing up.
Some hve-Stofy structures are being run up to
seven and eight stories. Birmingham (Ala
concerns are buying good deal of machinery
in that city.
The stockholders of the Toledo. Ann Arbor &
Northern railroad are paying their workmen on
the profit-sharing system, precisely as if the
sum they earned per month were SO much stock
in the company. The Pillsbury mills of Mime
apolis, are cond ueted upon the same plan. All
efforts OF the kind seem to be yielding satisfac-
ton to the employing interests.
English locomotive builders have been COM
PEELED to adopt the American pattern in many
respects in order to control their continental
traffic. The ideas of American mechanics
permeating foreign workshops, and the stub
born adherents to old methods have been obliged
to admit that much is to bs learned on this side
Of the water.
There have been 133 mills aud woodwork
factories established during the past three
months in the South. The total number for the
year is 562 During the past two years the num-
Der OF mills erected foot up 80. If the average
daily capacity of these mills be $4,000 feet.
counting a run of days per year the total
annual production of lumber in the Southern
States must reach 2, 250, 900, 900 feet
The Strong locomotive is attracting good
deal of attention among locomotive engineers
and railroad men. Itsmakers claim four points
of advantage-that 1t is capable of heavier
press service than Others that increased
weight IS placed upon the axle, that it uses less
fuel than the side-valve engine. and that IL